LP releases for 60s and 70s TV scores: some shows got them, some didn't. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE got one, while STAR TREK, which was literally filmed in the soundstage next door, did not (for nearly 20 years). MANNIX was another Desilu series being shot at the same time, and it got one.

HAWAII FIVE-O got an LP, as did THE MAN FROM UNCLE. But THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, no. I mean, SIX MILLION and STAR TREK got narrated story LPs, performed by unknown voice actors if I'm not mistaken, and Leonard Nimoy sang up a storm, but music from the episode scores wasn't coming out.

To get some score music on LP during a show's first run, I'm guessing the two big factors were a killer main title and some kind of conceptual similarity to a hit movie. Thus spies and detectives got a boost from the James Bond phenomenon, and their scores got vinyl releases. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was surely planned from the start to have an LP (a great and enduring one, it turns out) because the STAR WARS album had sold 3 million copies. But shows outside the genre of any big film were out of luck.

If there's anything to my hypothesis, then SPACE: 1999 is an outlier. It came before STAR WARS and its theme music was not rocking the nation, but it got an LP release from RCA. I wonder what the real factors were.

Sometimes it was just the policy of the production company, which wanted to use the album as a way of promoting the show. Four Star Productions was particularly prolific in issuing albums of its shows. From them we got:

Black Saddle Dick Powell Show, The Target: The Corruptors Gertrude Berg Show, The Rifleman, The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor, The Law And Mr. Jones, The Law Of The Plainsman Wanted: Dead Or Alive DuPont Show With June Allyson, The Michael Shayne Tom Ewell Show, The Zane Grey Theater

Even though you guys are retroactively pouting over what you didn't have, you Trekkies still had THE TRANSFORMED MAN, which is infinitely superior to anything the likes of Steiner, Fielding, or Courage could ever create. You had everything and you didn't even know it.

Sometimes it was just the policy of the production company, which wanted to use the album as a way of promoting the show.

That must be the third piece of the puzzle right there, along with a red-hot theme like HAWAII FIVE-O had, or a wave of fan interest in the genre created by a feature film. Thanks for the listing too, Bob. It seems like you're an LP historian sometimes.

Even though you guys are retroactively pouting over what you didn't have, you Trekkies still had THE TRANSFORMED MAN, which is infinitely superior to anything the likes of Steiner, Fielding, or Courage could ever create. You had everything and you didn't even know it.

When I read Jim Phelp's post about THE TRANSFORMED MAN, I mistook it in my mind for THE ILLUSTRATED MAN. I thought he was giving us a super-harsh scolding of the "Goldsmith over TOS" variety, and really not being facetious. Whoops.

LP releases for 60s and 70s TV scores: some shows got them, some didn't. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE got one, while STAR TREK, which was literally filmed in the soundstage next door, did not (for nearly 20 years). MANNIX was another Desilu series being shot at the same time, and it got one.

I don't think there's any great mystery why this is the case.

"Mission: Impossible" had a super-hot main title theme. It was a mainstream hit at the time, and got a lot of radio play. The "Mannix" theme was not as popular, but it was by the same composer and in the same idiom. At the time, no self-respecting bachelor was without some of these hip jazz albums.

"Star Trek" was a completely different animal, and certainly was not musically in the popular vernacular of the time.

(Also, though it may be hard to remember now, the series was not the hit that either "Mission: Impossible" or "Mannix" were at the time.)